Well, at least for two races.  Cavin broke it and Miller has confirmed that Graham will run two races, St. Pete and Barber, for Sarah Fisher Racing.

At this point, it’s a grab for what can be got for the ‘Stache. 

Tony Johns of PopOffValve.com literally read my mind on the way home from work:

As a man who has built his entire website around photoshopping pictures of Graham Rahal, to Tony I say: Bravo!  I couldn’t have done it any better myself.

That’s why I developed…

All you have to do is fill it out once, before the season, and you’re done until the end of the season.

You can find the Pool here.

I think it is pretty self-explanatory, but there are rules at the bottom if you need them.  Basically, you’re guessing:

• Whether a driver will score above, equal to, or below their final rank in the 2009 points standings,
• The number of wins a driver will have in 2010 season,
• The number of Top 10s a driver will have this season compared to 2009 (more, equal, less),
• and the answer to a few specific questions.

It’s that simple!  The scoring is described in the rules, and the margin of victory at Indianapolis is the tiebreaker.

I’ll probably throw some sort of prize together at the end, but I haven’t thought that far.  That’s why I ask for your email.

(Thanks to thehairpin at TrackForum, as I used his silly season list as the baseline, and to Mr. Dog, Mr. Pagdoa, and Mr. nameisirl for additional input)

Immediately people are crying out that the fact that Milka has a seat and Graham Rahal doesn’t is the biggest injustice since OJ was indicted. When you think of it reasonably, though, you see the two are entirely unrelated, and that’s coming from one of the largest Graham Rahal fans you’ll meet.  

Let’s think positively about Milka Duno and discuss the things Milka has not done over her career:

Milka Duno never hit a poor, defenseless bird.

Milka Duno never stole Pee Wee Herman’s bike.

Milka Duno never ran over Nigel Mansell’s head.

Milka Duno never crashed on a parade lap.

Milka Duno never dove into a pond before checking the water.

So let’s see…that makes Milka better than Scott Dixon (and Randy Johnson), Francis Buxton, Dennis Vitolo, Roberto Guerrero, Phillipe Gache, and some Scandinavian dude.

I said on twitter that if half the race winners last season were as fan-friendly as Milka, we’d be in a lot better shape.  She may not be the best driver, but I’ve never met anyone at a race track who was there because anyone on Ganassi or Penske was outwardly kind to them at a race a number of years prior. I met an older couple at time trials last year who were in from out-of-town solely to support Milka. 

Milka Duno, you’re ok by me.

You’ve got the right to request a re-shoot.

P.S. HUGGIES~!

Monday, Lord Randall Bernard, Duke of Bull Racing takes the reigns as the king of our world.

I, for one, cannot wait for the ceremony.  It’s going to be so big that it was, in fact, prophesied 1200 years ago.  Shown, clearly, is King Randy being coronated by Belskus and the sisters.  Nancy knit everyone’s outfit.

It was something that had been to victory lane at the Indianapolis 500 in nine of my twenty-two races.  It had been driven around the world by names such as:

Mears
Senna
Fittipaldi
Unser
Andretti
Hornish
Castroneves
Prost
Tracy
Häkkinen
de Ferran
Rosberg
Lauda
Mansell

Sure, it evolved over the years, but today Team Penske unveiled their new livery and (at least as far as I know) the classic Marlboro paint scheme has exited racing entirely.

You will be missed.

Update:  George wrote about 20,000 words expressing the same feelings a while back.  Also, my calculations are that the Marlboro scheme had a 50% success rate at Indianapolis when qualified.

Swift

The Swift Light concept is good, but I think it’s just a little short of awesome.  My proposal to Swift is to incorporate the lights into drivers’ helmets.  Attach them to a driver’s central nervous system and make them analogous to a giant, glowing mood ring.  I mean, sure, Scott Dixon’s helmet will always glow blue, but imagine the colors we’d see with Danica during one of her tantrums or Tomas during one of his glove throwing tirades.  We’d be seeing colors never humanly conceived, and it’d lead towards a logical sponsorship from Crayola.

Delta Wing

The Delta Wing’s best feature is its backside.  You other brothers cannot deny. Delta Wing has got a motor in the back of its Honda. 

That said, I am a little cautious on the Delta Wing when I’m reminded of the words of the great American philosophers Bell Biv DeVoe: "Never trust a big butt and a smile."

Lola

GUNS! 

When I first saw it, I thought that Lola was clearly listening to the fans.  It is indisputable that is a weapon of some sort, and it is indisputable that the Series needs more weapons.  I’m just glad that I wasn’t the only one to see this, as the recently Unsilenced Pagoda observed it as well.

Dallara

I don’t really have any good jokes about the Dallara, but I will commend them for not making their concepts primer gray.

Long-time IndyCar manufacturer Lola has released their proposal for 2012.   Perhaps fitting to the underlying theme of the Kinks song, this one serves up a duality as one of its primary uniquities.  The tub and nose are proposed to be common for both the IZOD IndyCar Series and Firestone Indy Lights.  I’ve had mixed emotions on the concept, but I can guarantee you that it would probably have a lot more FIL teams looking at the 500.  I can’t say with any confidence that it would, in practice, lead towards any line crossing in a regular single weekend event as the flipping of the tubs between configurations would probably be impossible between sessions.

You’ve got to give Lola some credit.  For certainly being, at least in a relative sense, evolutionary, it does certainly provide a load of sponsor space with it’s large, flat sidepods.

That concludes our prototype drawing releases for the 2012 IndyCar Series chassis.  I’ll see you in 2021.

First off, good god look at those hideous tacky jackets they’re making everyone wear.  I hate NASCAR.

- Watch a Samurai movie

That’s what I’m doing after this entry is posted.  Today’s selection will be Sanjuro, Akira Kurosawa’s sequel to Yojimbo. Netflix streaming is your daddy.

- Make a pie

First and foremost, pie is delicious.  Second, it usually requires some semblance of effort. I was going to make a coconut cream pie, but then I remembered that I’m traveling for work Tuesday.  Certainly not enough time to consume pie. This idea also gives you something to comically throw at your television in a fit of rage.

- Clean out your ears

Well, you’ll probably be inspired to do so as Darrell Waltrip makes ridiculous claims that you are convinced he didn’t actually say (like Dario’s four NASCAR races are the reason that he won the 2009 IndyCar Series championship). Luckily, we’re IndyCar fans.  We’ve heard of things called q-tips.

- Hate

Really, there’s so much to hate about this race: it’s boring, no one races until the last thirty laps, it’s on Fox, it has Dale Jesus. The only things connected with it that I can come up with that I don’t hate are Max Papis and JPM. 

- Take a nap

It’s the most acceptable nap of the year.  You can get half-a-night of sleep and still wake up for the end.  You can dream about the moonlight on the Wabash.

OK, when you first look at a car, then look at a car again the next day, and repeat that process for five days, you’ll end up where I am now.

I can tell you that my opinions on the Swifts and the Dallaras has remained pretty much unchanged since they were first revealed. For you calculus nerds, my d(opinion) / dt is zero on those.

I can also tell you that my opinion on the Delta Wing has improved greatly. The time rate of change of my opinion has been positive.

That’s not to say explicitly that I like the Delta Wing the best. In fact, I’d say that visually, it needs to be changed. That said, I don’t think it is as ugly as when I first saw it. In a chaotic world, first-order linear extrapolations are not realistic, and I’m probably never going to find the Delta Wing to be completely beautiful.

Is it wingless? Sure. Is that unlike any race car I’ve followed with any great passion since my birth? Certainly.

I’m not here to make C&B jokes, which is why I went with the more abstract Wayne’s World reference initially. I try to keep those off my website.

The reality of the situation is that the anti-proprietary nature of this car is the same that revolutionized the software world in the mid-1990s. No one ever thought that a Swede’s pet-project would evolve into the most powerful operating system in the world. Many of you have no idea what Linux is, but I can tell you that without it, you wouldn’t be reading this right here. I could make an argument that the open source software movement of the 90s led to the slightly lagged internet explosion.

But this ain’t no freaking nerd blog, and I’ll punch you in the FACE if you suggest anything otherwise.

This non-proprietary movement is key to the evolution of the series. If you have all the specs and designs readily available, they can be incorporated into a boat-load of aerodymanics-type classes in engineering programs across the country. That, in turn, can develop fans.

That and beer, but I’ve covered that before.

They’ve explicitly said it’s on the 18-35 or whatever year olds that they want. As a latter part of whatever defined demographic, or at the very least, one somewhat recently removed from it, I get this concept. I thought iPods were stupid, but I now own one. I thought iPhones were stupid, but I don’t know how I lived without one. I really don’t know what people did before the internet, even though I lived 13 years without it. I thought HDTVs were a rip-off and bought a 52" Sammy a few weeks ago. A lot of things seem silly at first.

I don’t get the looks, but I get the concept.

It’s just a real shame that something that I truly looked forward to has devolved into a split-era whine-fest. It has already become tiring.